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Vladimir Lenin

The Young Revolutionary

The 1905 Revolution and its Aftermath

Back in St. Petersburg after three years of exile, Lenin
threw himself into a new project–the creation of a Russian-language
Marxist newspaper, to be called Iskra, meaning
"The Spark." To this end, he traveled to Western Europe for the
second time, and it was there, with Plekhanov's support, that he
published the first issue on Christmas Eve of 1900. (Because of
the restrictive nature of the Tsar's regime, Iskra was
printed in Germany and then smuggled into Russia.) It was at this
point that Lenin first adopted his revolutionary pseudonym, naming
himself after the Lena, the longest river in Siberia.

Iskra soon occupied most of Lenin's hours,
as he served both as its primary writer–he churned out thirty-two
articles in the first two years, more than any other contributor–and
as a key fundraiser. Between 1900 and 1903, he did not return
to Russia, but instead traveled across Europe, writing articles,
attending meetings, and giving speeches; he persisted in this itinerant
lifestyle, with few interruptions, until 1917. Krupskaya, whose
own exile ended early in 1901, soon joined her husband; she met
him in Munich, where the first eight issues of Iskra were
published. In the year following her arrival, Lenin devoted himself
to a new book-length pamphlet, entitled What Is To Be Done?, which
laid out his personal blueprint for Marxist revolution. This tract,
advertised in Iskra, gained such notoriety that
Lenin, Plekhanov, and the other editors decided to shift their
base of operations out of Germany and into England, where they
were less likely to be arrested and deported to Russia. The move
was made in spring of 1902, and from then on Iskra was published
out of London.

By 1903, when the Second Congress of the Social Democrats
was held in London and Brussels, Lenin had become a major figure within
the party, through his writings, his extensive contacts within the
movement, and his position on the board of Iskra.
At the Congress, however, divisions within the Social Democrats
flared into the open, resulting in a decisive split within the party.
The schism had been growing for some years, but Lenin had crystallized
the differences in his What Is To Be Done?. In
that pamphlet, he had declared that the revolution, when it came,
would be carried out not by a broad popular movement, as Marx had
predicted, but by an elite cadre of Marxists whose day-to-day work
consisted of nothing but revolutionary activity. "The organization
of the revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people
who make revolutionary activity their profession," he wrote. "Such
an organization must perforce not be very extensive and must be
as secret as possible... Give us an organization of revolutionaries,
and we will overturn Russia!"

Lenin's opponents at the Congress, led by Y.O. Martov
(himself a member of Iskra's editorial board),
attacked this vision, and argued for a more broad-based party,
rooted in popular support. When the decisive vote came over which
standards to adopt for party membership, Martov's proposal actually
won by a count of twenty-eight to twenty-two, but Lenin (who only
obtained majorities by calling surprise votes on procedural matters)
nevertheless called his faction the Bolsheviks, meaning "majority,"
and their adversaries the Mensheviks, meaning "minority." The
names stuck, despite their inaccuracy, and from then on the Social
Democrats, despite official unity, were divided into two hostile
wings. Plekhanov at first sided with Lenin, and Martov and his
fellow Mensheviks were removed from Iskra's board–but
Lenin's strong-arm tactics and violent rhetoric (both of which
were to become characteristic of the Bolsheviks) soon led Plekhanov
to reconsider, and by autumn of 1903 Mensheviks outnumbered the
Bolsheviks on the paper's board. Dismayed by this turn of events,
Lenin resigned from Iskra in December, having moved
to Geneva with Krupskaya.

The Social Democrats' Central Committee, of which Lenin
was a member, continued to work for a compromise between the two wings
throughout the spring and summer of 1904. Lenin was invited to
return to Iskra, but he declined to do so, and
instead called for another Party Congress, where he was convinced
he could obtain a majority. When this demand was rebuffed, he
resigned from the Central Committee, effectively ending the chance
of a resolution to the party split. In winter of 1904, Lenin embarked
on a modest speaking tour that took him to Paris and then back
to Switzerland; at the same time, he founded a new journal, called Vperyod ("Forward!"),
which first appeared in January of 1905, but would continue publication
only until mid-May of that year. By that time, the gaze of Lenin
and all his fellow Marxists had refocused on Russia, where revolution
had suddenly broken out.